Icebox Cake: A Simple Summer Pleasure

By Tuffy Luv

It was hot the other day. I mean, really hot. Like, 94 degrees hot. But, unfortunately, it takes more than an unseasonable heat wave to make my sweet tooth dissipate.

I had planned earlier in the day to bake cookies, but the thought of turning on the oven in the heat made me feel like I was going to melt on the spot. And then, suddenly, I had a dessert altering memory:

When I was a wee brownie in my second year of the Girl Scouts, I went on a camping trip. After roasting the requisite marshmallows, my girl scout leader whipped out a little surprise: we were going to make icebox cake.

The dopey bunch of us gathered around and put together this seeming mishmash and then, the next morning, we were munching on one of the most delicious desserts we’d ever had.

When I once again made icebox cake the other day, I was pleased to discover that the dessert is every bit as delicious as I remembered it–and every bit as easy. In fact, it’s easier–as Girl Scouts, we made it by leaving it outside overnight in the winter. Now you can use–gasp!–a refrigerator!

Here is the (very easy) recipe. Enjoy!

Icebox Cake

You’ll need:

-2 packages of instant chocolate pudding

-1 16 oz package of graham crackers

-3 cups of milk (it tastes best with whole milk, but you substitute 2% if you really want to)

-a 9×13 baking pan

Combine the pudding mix and the milk and stir them together until they are completely mixed together.

Along the bottom of your baking pan, put down a floor of graham crackers, just one deep. Make sure they go all the way across the pan.

Pour about half of your pudding/milk mix on top of the graham crackers. Spread it out so it makes a flat and even layer.

Repeat these past two steps.

You should now have one layer of graham crackers, one layer of mix, a second layer of crackers, and a second layer of mix.

Now finish by layering one more layer of graham crackers on top.

Cover your creation with plastic rap and pop the whole thing into the refrigerator.

Let it sit in the fridge for 5 hours.

And, voila! Delicious dessert for a hot summer night!

(Makes 12 servings.)

[Image courtesy of http://www.tailored.com.au